A spent a pleasant day at Bicentennial Park at Homebush Bay looking mainly at the birdlife. It was interesting to wander around observing Nature.
It was a quite windy on the day and that may have limited what birds I saw. In the large pool were plenty of the usual birds – Ducks, Avocets, Black Winged Stilts and Black Swans. I also saw one Pelican, an Egret and a Royal Spoonbill.
I spent a bit of time in the hide trying to photograph the very fast moving Welcome Swallows. This is always a bit hit and miss, with a lot more issues than hits. Its hard to keep the camera pointed at the Swallows and hard to for camera focus system to acquire focus such fast moving creatures.
In the bush around the pool were the usual birds – Silvereyes, Superb Fairy-wrens and Red-browed Finches.
I walked to the Brickpit area – but that was fairly quiet for birds, although I could hear plenty of frogs below.
Back at the shipwreck observation platform, I observed a Darter sitting on one of the nearby wrecks enjoying the Sun. Lots of Silver Gulls were flying past.
A Pied Cormorant was also perched nearby.
The Darter later lowered itself into the water and managed in a few minutes to catch and eat a few small fish. I have watched darters before with fish and they usually spear them with their sharp beaks and bring them to the bank to detach the fish and then eat them. This Darter only caught small fish, and seemed to grab them in is beak like a Cormorant, and then toss them up in the air and catch them and swallow them in a nice action.
The Darter, then swam back and climbed up onto the wreck again to dry its wings. It was later joined by a Cormorant. It was interesting watching the Darter. Sometimes it would lower its head. I wonder if it was doing this to drain water or to stretch its neck or some other reason?
Back at the hide in the main pool, I spotted 5 Black-fronted Dotterels – but as usual with these small birds, they were a long way off and so hard to photograph.
I then slowly walked back around the pool. On the way, on the bay side, in the Mangroves, I spotted two Darters. I think one may have been the same one I photographed earlier. These were near the Observation Tower.
In one of there trees there I heard a bird calling. It was a White-plumed Honeyeater.
And along the dirt path on the east side of the Powells Creek. I spotted a few White-faced Herons in the mangroves.
I then heard the calls of some Cockatoos. A group of about four Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos. They flew off before I could get some good photos of them. But later, walking back, I saw two other visitors to the park – Florence and her friend looking at the Cockatoos. I joined them and we could see one pecking at the bark of one of the Mangroves. I was lucky to photograph it – and it then grabbed a rather large grub from the tree which it proceeded to eat. Here are some of the photos –
It was then a slow trip home with a major rail outage. I made it to Burwood Station but no farther by train, but was able to get a bus from there back to close to home.
